Summary

Across Five Aprils begins as Ellen Creighton and her son Jethro, who, at the start of the book, is nine, plant potatoes for the summer crop.

Ellen has borne twelve children, four of whom have died; three from children’s paralysis the year that Jethro was born; the other, Mary, died when Jethro was seven.

They take a break from the planting to say goodbye to Shadrach Yale, who had just begun teaching at the school where Matt Creighton, Jethro’s father, was director.

Shadrach had come to Illinois from Pennsylvania to attend college, but ran out of money and decided to take a temporary teaching job to help pay his expenses.

After Ellen nursed Shad back to health after he contracted typhoid fever, he became almost a part of the family; especially to Jethro’s sister, who is in love with him.

Shad is planning a trip to Newton in order to get news of the growing dispute between the North and the South. Ellen worries that the news will be of war, so Jethro tries to distract her as they work in the fields.

Thoughts of war lead Jethro to remember his sister’s death. Mary was on her way back from a dance when a group of hoodlums chased her. One of them, Travis Burdow, fired a pistol, causing her horses to bolt, her carriage to overturn, resulting in her death. The town vowed revenge on the Burdow family, whose reputation was none too good even before this incident, but Matt intervened to prevent it.

Jethro’s brother’s wife, Nancy, helps to prepare dinner, along with Bill’s wife, Jenny, and the family sits down to eat. The family included Tom and Bill, Jethro’s brothers; Eb, a cousin who is living with the Creighton family.

After dinner, Jethro and his mother go back to their planting, a task that is interrupted by the arrival of Wilse Graham, Ellen’s nephew, visiting from Kentucky.